About Us/White Paper

I saw crises and victims on the news everyday: forest fires, war refugees, animal shelters needing blankets, people struggling with their finances..The list never ended. It would take a head of state or celebrity to start a fundraising movement. But there was no one to help the little guy. The problem I identified was that no one knew of the little guy in need. And if they did, and wanted to help, they had to pull money from their accounts to donate. That takes determination. And money.

One day a colleague posted on social media a picture of a potty step that lifts your feet while on the toilet. I liked it and went and bought one. True story. P2P advertising really works!

One evening, I thought of race cars and how teams got paid to put decals on their cars. Then the idea clicked and I connected the three dots: donations - word of mouth recommendation - advertising dollars. The question was how could someone recommend a product to family and friends and get paid? And how could we support individual victims without emptying our bank accounts? Getting paid to endorse while texting seemed a good starting point.

Having worked in health care for many years, I knew very little about tech industry and advertising. But I knew that when you need to buy something, a recommendation from a trusted friend or family is the best way to get a second opinion. Word-of-mouth advertising is the most effective. My neighborhood listserve has recommendations everyday for everything from Vet clinics to vacuum cleaners. It creates a sense of community and promotes proven quality goods and services.

Advertising takes money, and the most cost-effective method of reaching large numbers is pay-per-click. But people are increasingly saturated with constant ads and pop-ups. There had to be a way to level the playing field for all advertisers, and to streamline and personalize the process.

I knew very little about the tech industry. But I read and learned and researched. With persistence, education, and networking, I made sense of the alphabet soup of terms and rapidly changing cyberscape.

I started designing and planning and slowly putting together the parts. I assembled a first-class development team with international experience. iofundit was being born, slowly, but surely.

Having volunteered many times overseas on medical missions and having run a homeless clinic in my home town for many years, I have made helping others part of my modus operandi. In the USNavy, I earned a humanitarian medal for rescuing refugees lost at sea; I grew up on a farm in the poor and remote mountains in central america; I know first hand the struggles and plight of those in need. There needed to be a better way to fund organizations that help others with the end point being a better planet.

iofundit is designed to put people and planet before profit. Yes, we charge an admin fee, but the bulk of money goes directly to the average text user and to victim's well being.

iofundit.com White Paper

iofundit.com.is an impact social media platform that transfers advertising dollars directly to users of private individual text and social media and, in turn, funds the most pressing social issues of our era.

Abstract

iofundit.com receives money from advertisers. When an email user includes that advertiser’s icon in the text of their mail or message, the user receives money into their account. The text or email user also select icons or links from their favorite non-profit causes and part of their proceeds go to fund those issues.

Functional details

An advertiser partner can deposit any amount of funds into iofundit.com. They can select how much money is allotted per user per click or per day for including the advertiser's icon in the user's email or text message. Minimum payments per icon can be as low as $0.10 up to any limit. They can select a category in which to be included. i.e. sports, auto, food, banking services.... The list is long.

On the left margin of the text app or email page is a list of advertising partner's icons with pop-up balloon feature along with what they pay per inclusion. Icons can be dragged and dropped anywhere into the body of the email or text. Text wraps around the icons. The icons have a pop-up balloon feature when hovered. Advertiser partners can submit their icons and deposits subject to admin approval.

On the right margin is a toolbox which includes a list of victims and social causes by category. Category examples are favorites, global, local, human rights, education, animal rights, civil rights, gun control, immigration control...The list is long. The issues can be local or global: of any geographic size.

The users have agreed that part of their payments go to fund these issues.

Victims and other recipients of funds.

Recipients must be vetted via an application process including tax ID, physical address, identifying information, modus operandi, names and information of principals involved and other legitimizing and verifiable information.

Ad hoc movements or informal organizations can receive funding by proxy through a formal registered organization or, alternatively via approval by a member board.

Weighted averages for local issues versus global issues.

Some issues that are important locally may not be important globally. There is a geographic sensitivity built in to the weighting system where the threshold for toolbox tags is much lower for a local issue than a global issue.

Also icons and toolbox items are weighted by priority: The first icon or toolbox item a user selects has more weight than the second item, the second item has more weight than the third item, and so on.

Advertisers pay more for first inclusion, less for the second inclusion and diminishing from there. Similarly, tools in the toolbox get most funding on first inclusion, less on the second and diminishing from there.

Users can suggest new tools, categories and social causes subject to admin approval.

Popularity threshold by weight

The weight of a social cause issue is measured by frequency, density and raw number of tags.

For example a large number of tags over a very short period of time has more weight than the same number of tags over a longer period of time.

A steady increase in tags over any period of time yields a graph line with a certain slope as defined by the equation: y=mx + b. Also a line-of-best fit can also provide a slope.

There is a minimum slope needed to prompt funding. A steep line would receive funding whereas a flatter line would not.

A given number of tags restricted to a very small geographic area carries more weight than the same number of tags over a greater geographical area. This lowers the threshold for local issues and affords weight to local issues. For example, given 100 tags, a local animal shelter may trigger funding, but a regional animal shelter may not.

Creating shared value

Email users and texters are, in turn, consumers, and have at their disposal the ability to create a shared value system among products. This consumer driven shared value is inherently different from corporate social responsibility. The former is driven by consumer preference or conscience and the latter is generated internally within a corporation.

For example MegaGulp beverage company might pay $2.00 per click whereas Tiny Organic beverage company might pay $0.25 per click. The consumer can pick the advertiser either based on amount they might earn, or based on conscience. The value of the word-of-mouth advertising is greater for the smaller company if it produces a more appealing product than for the larger advertising entity with more money to spend on advertising.

Best practices and cost effectiveness and return on investment advertising

Studies suggest the most effective mode of advertising is word-of-mouth.

Additionally a cost comparison of advertising modes shows that pay per click advertising is by far the least expensive method to reach a given number of people. And while traditional print advertising is dying, social media advertising is rising at a very fast rate.

Ad blocking software

Online advertising is reaching saturation levels and user intolerance for advertising is prompting methods to reduce it. Traditional online advertising is becoming less efficient. Software to block advertising is becoming more popular. Many software apps offer free ad blocking. In addition, it has been shown that ad blocking software extends battery life on portable devices.

Suggestion to web publishers and product marketers and ioT

Web pages can display an iofundit button to automatically add that topic, non-profit, or social cause to a user’s toolbox.

Also, marketers can add an iofundit button, beacon or Near Field Communication to their product. For example, in a supermarket aisle, iofundit can add that product via phone tap or proximity beacon to a user’s list of favorites.

This type of transaction also lends itself well to bankless currency like bitcoin.

Community and economic benefits of ImpactSocial Media

When users vote to include local social issues from their toolboxes into their emails, it creates a sense of community and brings to light the importance of local issues and a way to actively and efficiently address them. For example disaster victims can get aid and relief immediately instead of having to wait for a celebrity to endorse the issue or a corporation to advertise it conventionally.

Advertisers benefit directly by virtue of word of mouth advertising from one consumer endorsing their product to another. In addition, when advertisers pay consumers directly, it puts more disposable income in their pockets.

Brave, a new, faster browser from Mozilla blocks all ads, whose overall downloads dwarf the actual content. Brave will scrub all ads, replace those ads with its own and share revenue with the advertisers, thus creating an alternate revenue path for advertising. By not tracking, nor using cookies, user privacy is maintained.